My son went to a high school with a 40% Asian population. Not surprisingly, it had the #1 HS orchestra in the country. And it produced a disproportionate share of National Merit Scholars. It excelled at academic bowl competitions, winning or placing first out of over 1300 schools worldwide in a certain competition even while these kids were in middle school. These kids were my son's peers. Many of them, of course, are steeped in liberal ideology.
My kid is very conservative politically and very Christian. It was understood that cheating was rampant among the Asian students. Their parents were extremely competitive with each other in the community, and some actually beat their kids to make them study. My son had none of those "advantages."
Yet, I thank God that he had the natural ability and common sense to do things the right way. He was never a "grinder", but he kept his grades up. His teachers loved him, and some from middle school even came to his graduation party. He excelled at working in groups and coming up with creative ideas-- things the Asian kids were not trained at home to do especially well. As a result, he was made captain of the academic team and captain of the band. While leading a well-balanced life, he managed to come out #1 nationally on the National Geography Challenge and win 2 gold medals on the National Latin Exam. He also won the Sousa Award as top band student (played brass and woodwinds) and the Louis Armstrong Award as top jazz student (lead guitar, bass, and arrangements for ensembles and percussion groups). He finished with 44 AP hours, and scored 2290 on the SAT- 800 verbal, 740 math, 770 essay-- with the months of expensive courses that many of the Asian kids took. While his peers went to Ivy League and other top northern schools, he wanted to stay in the Bible Belt and attend public school on academic and music scholarships.
Needless to say, some of the very competitive Asian kids hated him, while others admired him and were (and still are) his friends. He's proved what an American kid can do, and that the values that made this country the best in the world still work.
Good for him, and you.
My kids have excelled as well and were all invited to join the honors programs at the colleges to which they applied.
They know how to work with others and think outside the box, and not at the expense of beating them either.
We’d still love and approve of them without being top in anything.
Meant without such courses. We did nothing special academically in raising him--the glory belongs to God.